Ukrainian Derby

Klasychne derby (Ukrainian: ''Класичне'', as ''Classico''), or the ''Ukrainian football rivalry'' is the football match between the two top Ukrainian clubs Dynamo Kyiv and Shakhtar Donetsk. The game between those two clubs is a focal point of each football season in Ukraine. Due to war, at least three of their scheduled fixtures were scratched in 1941 and 2022.

Dynamo and Shakhtar were the top Ukrainian clubs since introduction of the Soviet professional football competitions in 1936. They played against each other since 1938 and the rivalry between them two grew into the Ukrainian national rivalry only sometime after 1996 since the teams were two main contenders for the national title. Some matches between these clubs could be traced as early as 1931 as part of the republican Dynamo sports society competitions when Dynamo Kyiv was playing against the Shakhtar's predecessor Dynamo Stalino.

From 1981 to 1996, a rivalry between Dynamo Kyiv and FC Dnipro was dominant. At that time Dnipro, that returned to the Soviet Top League in 1981, won two Soviet titles in the 1980s and almost became a Ukrainian champion in the 1992–93 season.

During the times of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian rivalry was overshadowed by the rivalry between Dynamo Kyiv and Spartak Moscow (see Spartak Moscow–Dynamo Kyiv derby) that has developed sometime in the 1960s.

Formation of the derby

Soviet Union

The two clubs first met back in 1938 in Kyiv in the Soviet Top League with Dynamo winning it 2–0. At the time, Dynamo Kyiv was the main representative of Ukraine in the Soviet League, while Shakhtar initially had some difficulties to secure their place there. The Donetsk team, however, was considered to be the main representative of the Ukrainian SSR other than Dynamo, representing the most industrialized and heavily urbanized Donbas region in the eastern part of Ukraine. In a few occasions Shakhtar even managed to place higher than the Dynamo's "Capitals" in League, but for the most of the time Dynamo had more success head-to-head. Their meetings were not as popular in the Soviet League outside of Ukraine as the Moscow – Kyiv face off particularly between Dynamo and Spartak.

Ukraine

The 1990s: Dynamo's dominance

The trend of Dynamo's total dominance continued well after the establishment of the ''Ukrainian Vyshcha Liha'' (which eventually became the Ukrainian Premier League). For several seasons Shakhtar was not even among the main contenders for the league title, which was often contested by either FC Dnipro or Chornomorets Odesa. Dynamo won every single league title in the 1990s except one, when SC Tavriya Simferopol managed to pull off an upset, winning the inaugural Ukrainian league season, with Dynamo taking the silver medals, and Shakhtar finishing fourth.

In 1996, Rinat Akhmetov became Shakhtar's president and started investing heavily into the club. Shakhtar became relevant again, placing 2nd in 1996–97, and not finishing below 2nd place in the league ever since. In an interview to Vatsko Live (russian: link=no, Вацко Live), former Shakhtar player Andriy Vorobey said that at least since 1997 it was cultivated at Shakhtar that Dynamo is not just an opponent, but rather the enemy.

The 2000s: rise of Shakhtar

It was not until the early 2000s when this fixture obtained the status of a true "derby". In the first years of the decade, Dynamo were still riding the wave of their late 1990s success, when they reached the UEFA Champions League quarterfinals and semi-finals in consecutive seasons. After the death of their legendary manager Valeriy Lobanovskiy in 2002, Dynamo's success in the European and Ukrainian competitions began to decline. This coincided with the continued rise of Shakhtar, who won their first Ukrainian league title in 2001–02, which took the rivalry between the two clubs to a whole new level. In the 2008–09 season, the Ukrainian derby was contested in European competition for the first time. Shakhtar defeated Dynamo in a 2008–09 UEFA Cup semi-final and then became the first side in the sovereign Ukraine era to win a European competition.

The 2010s

During the 2015–16 Ukrainian Premier League, on 16 October, Shakhtar Donetsk beat FC Dynamo Kyiv 0–3 in Kyiv and set two new records. One record was that for the first time during a Ukrainian derby game in Kyiv a team scored three goals. The other record was that for the first time Shakhtar had more Ukrainian derby victories, 26, than Dynamo. On 1 May 2016, in the second Premier League match between them at Arena Lviv, Shakhtar won 3–0 again, making it the first time when Dynamo loses two derby matches one after another with a margin of at least 3 goals. Despite all that, Dynamo became the champions that season.

Venues

As of recently, both Dynamo and Shakhtar play at the Olympiyskiy National Sports Complex in Kyiv. Olympiskyi NSC has been one of Dynamo's two home stadiums since 1951 (the other one being the much smaller Valeriy Lobanovskyi Dynamo Stadium). Shakhtar, on the other hand, for the longest time (1938–2001) played at their older Central Stadium "Shakhtar" in Donetsk. In 2008 Shakhtar built new modern stadium Donbas Arena of UEFA elite class, but was forced to leave Donetsk in 2014 due to War in Donbas. Since then, Shakhtar has been based in Kyiv, but until early 2020 played their home matches primarily at Metalist Stadium in Kharkiv

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